


i hold my breath

by QuietLittleVoices



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, M/M, fluff?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 08:19:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14807708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuietLittleVoices/pseuds/QuietLittleVoices
Summary: Sammy takes the first steps towards hope.





	i hold my breath

**Author's Note:**

> I can't even pretend this has a plot, but enjoy!
> 
> Title from 'Fill in the Blank' by Car Seat Headrest.

Ben noticed. Not right away - Sammy sat to his left, and Ben didn’t tend to look at Sammy’s hands. Except when he was, obviously. 

It had been just over a week since they’d been back on the air after the station had been rebuilt, and Ben realized that Sammy was wearing a ring on his left hand. Ben didn’t ask - he knew that would make Sammy balk - but there was only one thing it  _ could _ be, so he didn’t have to. He didn’t say anything either, as much as he wanted to. He wanted to voice his support, both for Sammy generally and what he was pretty sure this meant, but he didn’t. 

Ben knew that Sammy would say something to him when he was ready, and he was right. 

Sammy waits until an ad break two hours into the show - and now that Ben’s noticed he can see Sammy rubbing his left thumb along the inside of his ring finger, either as a nervous or comforting gesture. He opens his mouth to say something as soon as the ad starts, and then shuts it again. He thinks for a couple more seconds before finally saying, “I think I want to see that notebook you’ve got going.”

Ben can feel the grin splitting his face and doesn’t bother to hide it as he pulls the notebook out of his bag and pushes it across the table to Sammy. “There isn’t a lot in that one,” he admits, apologetically. “I filled up the first one, and Emily’s got some stuff at her place, too, if you want to go check that out later? After the show, or something.”

Sammy nodded in a stilted, jerky motion as he flipped open the notebook, trying to look casual.

“If you wanna keep reading, we can just go to listener calls and you can chime in whenever,” Ben offers. 

Sammy shook his head and closed the notebook, almost carefully, but didn’t return it to Ben, and Ben made no move to retrieve it. “No, it’s - I’m good. We can go to Emily’s and look at all the things you’ve gathered, later on. As long as we aren’t waking her up.”

Ben bounced a little in his seat, unable to completely contain his enthusiasm. “Don’t worry; she gets up at six. I’ll send her a text so she’ll see it when she wakes up and expects us.”

“Okay,” Sammy agreed. “That works.” 

 

Sammy followed Ben from the station to Emily’s apartment. He flexed his fingers against the wheel, letting himself take a moment to revel in the feel of his ring tapping against the leather. It made it feel real and concrete, and he wished more than anything that Jack was there with him to share that moment. He wished that Jack was with him to share every moment.

They’d only worn their rings once - inside the home they shared, on the day that they’d actually gotten engaged. Jack had even gotten them both simple chains, so that they could keep the rings on them even though they weren’t ready to wear them publicly. They talked about it, though, and they had a plan set in place. Every time Sammy had felt the cool metal against his skin back then, he’d been filled with hope - that the fear and frustration of being in the closet would be behind them, and for the future that they wanted to build together.

It was a similar hope that filled him now, following Ben through winding streets down the mountain. But now that the first half of that hope had been dealt with, even though it hadn’t been his choice, he could lean into the second. Sammy had dug the ring out of the box he’d kept it in, stashed safely in his nightstand, because he wanted to remind himself that it was worth it. The future he had hoped for with Jack over three years ago was worth it -  _ Jack _ was worth it. 

 

Ben punched the apartment code in and let himself and Sammy up to Emily’s apartment. Sammy raised an eyebrow at him when he took out his key to the apartment and let them in, and Ben felt himself flush.

“Sometimes I come over after we finish up, and end up falling asleep, and she doesn’t want to wake me up but wants the door locked when I leave,” he muttered.

Sammy smiled at him, eyebrows still raised. “I didn’t say anything, buddy.”

Ben elbowed him lightly in the stomach and pushed open the door. It was a little bit past six, but it was obvious that Emily was already up from the smell of eggs cooking. They walked into the small kitchen to find Emily still in her pyjamas, making breakfast. She smiled at them as they walked in. “Good morning,” she said cheerily, and Sammy and Ben echoed her greeting back at her. “I made enough coffee for you two - Ben, yours is in the blue mug.” She nodded to the counter behind her where, sure enough, two mugs sat next to a fancy-looking coffee press. “I’m only making enough food for me, because I wasn’t sure if you were staying long, but you can help yourself to anything.”

Ben walked over and gave her a quick kiss before picking up his mug and taking a big sip. “You’re so thoughtful,” he said, knowing that there was a sappy smile on his face. The coffees had already been made up with the right amount of milk and sugar, because those were the kinds of details that Emily remembered about her friends. “We can just take the box and go back to my apartment so you can get ready for work - we’ll probably end up falling asleep, anyway.”

“I don’t mind helping you go through it,” Emily said, pushing her eggs onto a plate and depositing the pan in the sink with a quick rinse. She grabbed her own coffee mug with her free hand. “I already put the box on the table.” 

Sammy and Ben followed her to the table where there sat a simple storage box, not unlike the many Sammy had stashed under the guest room bed and piled up in the closet of all of Jack’s things. He walked up to it and popped the top off, laying it to the side and away from where Emily had sat down to begin eating.

The box wasn’t completely full, yet. It had two spiral bound notebooks in the same generic brand that Ben was known to buy, and then two plain 3” binders - one white, and the other blue.

“The white binder has my himinist research,” Emily said after a sip of coffee. “And the blue one is about the Science Institute. They’re all photocopies, so don’t worry about putting notes on them. That’s what we’ve been doing.”

“Do you think-?” Sammy began to ask, but Emily’s shrug cut him off.

“It’s just a hunch, but we aren’t ruling anything out yet.”

Sammy nodded and reached into the box, pulling out the notebooks first because they were on top and flipping through them quickly. Like the notebook Ben had showed him at the station, they were largely filled with bullet points and train of consciousness type paragraphs, referring to things that must be in the binders. So he pulled the white one out and opened the cover to start flipping through the material. Emily launched into an explanation, with Ben’s help, of the theories they had accumulated and the evidence behind each one.

He tapped his ring finger against the edge of the binder, letting the dull noise comfort him, and as he listened to his friends who were so unbridledly enthusiastic about doing this - for him, because they wanted him to be happy - he felt hope take root in the pit of his stomach.


End file.
